


Never Enough

by ratherstarryeyed



Series: Feels Like Love [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: And angst, Death, Ghosts, M/M, Sanders Sides Spooky Month 2019, You Have Been Warned, and that being said, and you know the character the story follows is Very Dead, anyway, but it’s referenced tons, carry on now, first of all: death. that is a thing that has happened here., ghost!side, i didn’t figure out any of the details of this Don’t Ask Questions, in the loosest possible way, is all this fic is, it doesn’t happen in this part, it’s not. it takes place in the canon universe, just accept that the dude is dead and thomas can still function, that’s all you need to know, you’d think this is an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 04:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21130964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherstarryeyed/pseuds/ratherstarryeyed
Summary: Seeing is believing, as they say, and he doesn’t want to believe that he’s dead. He still has so much more to do; he can be so much more and he wants to live for so much longer. He wants to feel alive again, feel the breeze and sunlight brushing across his face, feel the rush of pure joy that comes with singing, with delivering a line just right, with the applause that comes at the end of a performance.Being dead doesn’t come with nearly that much feeling. Now, all he feels is… dead. Dead and numb. He doesn’t know what else he’d expected.One of the sides has died, but he’s still here. And for the life—or rather, death—of him, he can’t remember why he could be.





	Never Enough

**Author's Note:**

> for a fic event on tumblr, run by [@sanderssidescelebrations](https://sanderssidescelebrations.tumblr.com/post/187843455281/sanders-sides-spooky-month)
> 
> all titles for this series are from [this](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6XdbT07No4fDVUkgE9M1Sb) playlist that i made for Reasons and Vibes

Eyes that had been closed are now open. A world that had been full of darkness is now full of light. It hurts, that light. The darkness had been a comfort.

A slow blink, then another as those newly opened eyes adjust to the light. A third blink and the brightness of the world becomes less abrasive. A fourth and the eyes stop missing the darkness. A fifth and everything is alright. A slow breath and he can almost convince himself that he’s alive.

Of course, the breath hadn’t involved any air entering or exiting his lungs, so that had been a dead giveaway that he’s, well… dead. 

Still, he forces himself to keep breathing. He doesn’t want to feel dead, doesn’t want to feel useless.

He sits up, stretching out his limbs and raising an arm in front of him. Everything looks normal, albeit a tad transparent. It’s easy enough to ignore though, and he’s able to convince himself that he’s fine. 

Sure, he’s dead, but he’s also fine. Completely fine.

Then he looks down and screams, a hand flying his mouth. 

That’s his _body_ right there. That’s his _body_ lying lifeless beneath his feet, skin colored gray, eyes empty and glassy. He turns away from the sight, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat. He forces himself to breathe again. If he doesn’t look down again, if he ignores the transparency of his arms, legs, chest, _everything,_ he can still convince himself that he’s fine. He has to be fine. 

He shuts his eyes again. Seeing is believing, as they say, and he doesn’t want to believe that this is happening. He doesn’t want to believe that he’s dead. He still has so much more to do; he can be so much more and he wants to live for so much longer. He wants to feel alive again, feel the breeze and sunlight brushing across his face, feel the rush of pure joy that comes with singing, with delivering a line just right, with the applause that comes at the end of a performance. 

Being dead doesn’t come with nearly that much feeling. Now, all he feels is… dead. Dead and numb. He doesn’t know what else he’d expected.

All he knows now is that he has to get out of that room. It’s becoming apparent to him that ghosts can smell, and the scent of decay is quickly permeating the room. He can’t pretend to be fine in any sense of the word if the odor from his own body keeps distracting him. It’s high time that he leaves his corpse behind.

He floats out through the doorway just ahead of him, eyes firmly shut as he does so. He doesn’t want to catch so much as a glimpse of his now-abandoned body on the way out. If it were up to him, he’d forget he’d ever seen it and never lay his eyes on it again.

Letting out one final shudder to dislodge any lingering images, he carefully arranges his expression back into one of casual charm. Not that anyone is likely to see his face, but he’s found that if he acts fine, he begins to feel the same way. While he’s unsure if that’s really necessary now that he’s dead, he figures that keeping himself primed and ready for anything can’t possibly hurt. After all, he’s still clueless as to what he’s doing in the land of the living. From what he knows of ghosts, they only stay on earth if they have unfinished business. 

But that’s where the problem lies. He doesn’t exactly remember who he’d been while alive, but he feels confident that he’ll be able to figure it out somehow. Eventually. 

He wonders vaguely if he’ll be able to ask someone who he was. _Can_ ghosts communicate with the living? It’s as worthy an idea as any he’s had so far. Which, granted, has just been that one, but he has to start somewhere. Attempting to talk to someone isn’t that insane as far as plans go, so he sets off in search of any living person.

As luck would have it, he runs into someone just as he turns the corner—although ‘runs into’ isn’t exactly the right phrasing in this instance. It’s more like… ‘runs through’. The feeling can’t have been pleasant for the other party involved, he imagines. Being run through hardly ever is. But, at least he’s found someone.

He slinks around the figure, making his way around him to catch a glimpse of his face. The figure has stopped moving and a frown has taken over his face, quite possibly due to whatever he’d felt when he’d been run through by a ghost. He shakes his head and starts walking again though, so the ghost who had run through him is forced to move out of the way, lest he repeats his previous mistake.

Hovering near the ceiling, the ghost contemplates the young man beneath him. He’s fairly certain that he’d been wearing glasses and a tie—at least, that’s what he’d seen during the brief glimpse that he’d caught of his face. And glasses are generally a mark of someone smart while neckties label a person serious, so he concludes that this is as good a place to start as any. 

He sinks back down, face to face with the bespeckled man, moving backward as he moves forward. “Hello,” he says. The man doesn’t answer, so he tries again. “Can you hear me?” he asks in a slightly louder voice. When he’s still met with no response, he grows frustrated. “I’m right here, how can you not see me?” He knows the reason perfectly well of course, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. “Say something!”

“Patton?” the man asks. That’s not the ghost’s name, is it? He turns around, checking if there’s someone behind him. To his chagrin, there is. Another man wearing glasses who looks almost identical to the one he’d taken to pestering. 

So it seems that he isn’t able to communicate with the living. _He’ll have to think of something else,_ he reasons, ignoring the searing disappointment in his chest.

He allows the conversation taking place to play out around him, oblivious to what’s being said. Once in a while, a word or two catches his attention, and he’ll be hit with an idea. Then the idea is ripped to shreds by his own mind as he immediately finds at least seven things that make it impossible. He hadn’t thought of impossibility as a limitation before now, but he doesn’t want to face the pain of disappointment again. His next idea has to work. It has to be perfect. He won’t let it fail.

“...Roman.” He’s so startled by the word that his calm floating quickly turns into flailing. _Roman. Who’s Roman? Why had the two people below him been talking about this Roman? Is he important?_ He must be, this is the first word that’s caught his attention so abruptly. He sinks lower so as to better hear the conversation.

“I know,” the person he’d passed through says with a sigh. “But Remus can… well, none of them are great, but he can come up with _some_ ideas. It’s not like we’ve lost all creativity.” He feels himself bristle at that without knowing why. It sounds almost like they’re talking about replacing someone—likely the Roman they’d mentioned. It causes an inexplicable pain in his chest. If he were Roman, he wouldn’t want to be replaced. _No one_ deserves to be replaced, not Roman and not anyone else. They can’t replace Roman.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. I miss him.” That one is Patton, isn’t it? It had been what the first man had called him, at any rate. He already likes this guy more.

“We all do, but we also have to move forward. It’s probably best if we forget about him.” Panic seizes his chest. Why does the man with the tie want them to forget about Roman? _He_ doesn’t want them to forget about Roman. The thought terrifies him more than anything he’s ever known. They can’t forget about Roman. They can’t.

“Maybe,” Patton replies. The ghost is beyond relieved to hear the skepticism in his voice. “But I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d want us to forget about him, you know?” If it were possible for anyone to hear him, he would have given that statement a standing ovation. 

Tie Man shakes his head. “Perhaps that is the case, but Roman is _dead._ There isn’t any point in dwelling on the pain memories of him bring.”

Each word is like a stab to his chest. It hurts, and he has no idea why it does. He shouldn’t care as much about this Roman character as he does. 

Patton looks as troubled as he feels. “Why would you say that? You of all people should know that—”

“Enough.” He sounds angry but under that… sad as well?

_Why would he be sad? He’d been the one to suggest that they forget about Roman, so talking about him shouldn’t be a problem. Not if he cares so little._

“Logan—”

_Logan._ Logan. He knows that name. He knows who Logan is. Logan is more important than Remus by far, more important than Roman too.

“I said _enough._”

_Who is Logan? Why can’t he remember?_

“I just wanted to apologize,” Patton says, his voice small.

“I— right. You’re right. I should have let you speak. I didn’t intend to interrupt.”

Patton sighs. “I’m sorry, Lo. But listen, I know this can’t have been easy for you. I know you—”

“Patton, please, I told you I don’t want to talk about this.”

_Why the hell not? He’d been perfectly fine before._

Logan’s objections go ignored. “—loved him more than any of us.”

_Why did he want to forget him, then? Why would he want to forget someone he loved?_

“I said I don’t— I don’t— I can’t—” he looks seconds away from breaking down completely, moving to lean against the wall. “I can’t,” he says, unable to manage anything above a whisper.

_Logan._ The thought is a realization this time. _Logan._ He’d loved Roman, loved him so much that any memory now is too much for him. He’d _loved_ Roman, not hated him.

He’d loved _him._

“Logan. Oh, Logan.” Roman misses him with a sudden, fierce intensity as everything he’d known comes rushing back to him. Every kiss, every whispered _‘I love you’,_ every fight, every smile. Every. Single. Moment. 

And they all hurt. Each and every one of them.

“Logan,” he repeats. He falls to the ground beside him, unable muster the energy needed to keep himself afloat. “Logan.”

One of them is crying. He doesn’t know whether it’s him.

Patton is still standing. Likely, he doesn’t know what to do, what to say. Roman doesn’t either. He wishes— he wishes for so many things, all of them impossible. 

He wishes for Logan most of all, though. To hold him, to comfort him, to tell him that it’s okay, even if the words are a lie. 

“Logan,” he says again. 

Logan can’t hear him, of course. No one can hear him. No one will be able to hear him ever again since… he’s dead.

Roman is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> comments give me life, so. if you’d be so kind,,
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ratherstareyed) || [tumblr](ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com) || [tumblr post](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com/post/188527903248/never-enough)


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